The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-06-04
A HoMEsIcK PRINTER-BoY.

part of the second winter. which found us still there. that it was justly thought fit should leave these vain delights, and go to earn some money in print ing office ill N. l was, though so young, a good compositor, swift and clean. and when the foreman of the printing office appeared one day at our cabin. and asked ii, could come to take the place ofa delinquent hand, there was no question with any one but myself that must go. For me. terrible homesickness fell instantly upon me-a homesickness that already, in the mere prospect of absence. pierced my heart, and filled my throat. and blinded me with tears.
 The foreman wanted me to go back with him in his buggy. but days grace was granted me, and then my elder brother took me to N, where he was to meet my father at the rail- road station on his return from Gin cinnati. It had been showing, in the soft. southern Ohio fashion, but the clouds had broken way,and the even- ing fell in clear sky, applegreen along the horizon. as We drove on. This color of the sky must always be associated for me with the despair that then filled my soul, and which l was constantly swallowing down with great gulps. We joked, and got some miserable laughter out of the efforts of the horse to free himself from the snow that balled in his hoots. but l suffered all the time an anguish of homesick- ness that now seems incredible. All the time had every fact of the cabin life before me; what each of the chil- dren was doing especially the younger ones. and what above all. my Another was looking; saw the wretchcd little phantasm of myself moving about there.
 The editor to whom my brother delivered me over could not conceive of me as tragedy; he received me as if l were the merest commonplace, and delivered me in turn to the good man with whom 1 was to board. There were half dozen school girls board ing there. too, and their gayety. when they came in. added to my desolation.
 The man said supper was about ready. and he reckoned l would get something to eat if I looked out for myself. Upon reflection, l answered that thought did not want any sup per. and that l must go to find my brother. whom 1 had to tell some thing. found him at the station, and told him l was going home with him. He tried to reason with me. or rather with my frenzy with homcsickness and Iagreed to leave the question open till my father came: but in my own mind it was closed.
 My father suggested. however, some thing that had not occurred to either of us: we should both stay. This seemed possible for me; but not at that boarding house, not within the sound of the laughter of those girls We went to the hotel, where we had beefsteak and ham and eggs and hot biscuit every morning for breakfast. and where we paid two dollars apiece for the week we stayed. At the end of this time the editor found another hand. and we went home, where l was welcomed as from a years absence.
 Again was called to suffer this trial, the chief trial of my boyhood, but it came in milder form, and was light ened to me not only by the experience of survival from it, but by various circumstances. This time l went to D., where one of my uncles was still living. and he somehow learned of the misery was ill. and bade me come and stay with him while l remained in D.. 1 was very fond of him. and of the gentle creature, his wife. who stood to me for all that was naturally and conventionally refined, type of gracious lovelincss and womanly splendor.
 They had an only child. to whom her cousins presence ill the house was a constant joy. Over them all hung the shadow of fragile health. and look back at them through the halo of their early death: but the remembrance can- not make them kinder than they re- ally were. With all that, I was home sick still. fell asleep with the rad iant image of our log cabin before my eyes, and I woke with my heart like lead in my breast.
 Idid not see how could get through the day, and began it with miserable tears. had found that by drinking a good deal of water at my meals I could keep down the sobs for the time being, and practiced this device to the sur prise. and alarm of my relatives, who were troubled at the spectacle of my unnatural thirst.
 Sometimes left the table, and ran out for a burst of tears behind the